


A Reason for Power

by singingwithoutwords



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Deal with a Devil, Demonic Possession, Gen, POV Animal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Templars do not have ailurophobia-  their fear of cats is very rational and very justified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Reason for Power

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this can all be blamed on [a tumblr post](http://singingwithoutwords.tumblr.com/post/135190985613/jewishzevran-inquisitorsfancyhats-so-in), my own overactive imagination, and acute procrastination.
> 
> Figures my first DA fanfic would be this sort of wtfery.

He doesn’t go to the Strange Place often; he doesn’t like it there.  Nothing stays where it should.  Up is sometimes down.  The light is wrong.  Things are not the way he wants them.  He dislikes it.

But there are things in the Strange Place.  Powerful things that cannot leave the Strange Place on their own.  He needs one of the powerful things, and he has something to offer them.

He tells the passing of time by steps taken and degree of hunger, but these are useless in the Strange Place.  He takes enough steps to fill days of time, but feels no hunger at all, doesn’t feel the need to stop and rest even once.  There is an itch along his back that he knows no amount of rubbing on stone can ease, that will only go away when he leaves the Strange Place, but he is not done here.

He has no idea how long he’s been in the Strange Place when he finally finds one of the things.  It’s a towering thing of heat and bright light and the smell of burning stone.  He sits on the ground and curls his tail around his paws while the thing stares down at him.

“What have we here?” the thing asks, bending and sinking into the ground and putting its face close to his, hotter than sun-baked stone.  “Such a vulnerable shape to take in the Fade, little one.”  It has no mouth, yet its words are clear.  Curious.

He cocks his head to the side and flicks his ear.  “This is my shape,” he says.  He cannot speak in the world, but the Strange Place is different even in that.  “It is suited to me.”

“What brings you to the Fade, little one?” the thing asks.  Its voice is full of amusement and the sizzle-hiss of water on red-hot iron.

“I want power,” he tells it simply.  “I can find it here.”

“And what can you give in exchange for power?”

“Freedom.  Give me power, and you may have my body in exchange.”

The thing draws back, taking its oppressive heat.  It circles him, but he doesn’t follow its path.  He is not some weak-willed two-legged one to be overpowered here, and he is not so easy to intimidate.

“Very well, little one,” the thing says at last.  “Let us make you powerful.”

 

* * *

 

There is painless burning, scorched stone and blood and fearful voices.  The world is warped, twisted like the Strange Place, but at least up and down are as they should be.  He sees himself reflected in a bloodied breastplate, eyes hollow windows of fire, fangs and claws coated in blood.  Two of the bad ones are dead, but not the bad one with the key.  The key to free his friend, the reason he sought power in the first place, the key that is the crux of their deal.  He snarls at the remaining bad ones, his hiss a roar like an erupting volcano.  The thing from the Strange Place now within him swells, feeding on the power of his fury.

The bad ones will die and his friend will be free.  His friend who named him, who saved him tidbits of his own meager meals, who stroked his fur in the darkness and sobbed so brokenly when the bad ones weren’t near enough to hear.  His body is no longer his, will never be again, but that is a small price to pay.

The bad ones will die.

His friend will be free.

Mr. Wiggums leaps from his last kill to his next target, dripping fire and molten rage.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry, DA fandom.


End file.
